Beyond Luck and Sight
by AmandaDaire
Summary: Rhoda Hound wants to understand herself and her blind spells, but when she is taken to Camp Half-Blood as a demigod, she sees that she needs to understand more than just that if she wants to survive the mysterious force going against her fellow half-bloods.


My mum and dad were clueless about raising a little girl. The fact that I didn't turn out more screwed up than I already am is probably due to an impressive amount of luck. I don't think I'll ever put a label on what kind of luck that is, because if I were ever lucky, they were not, and vice versa.

And they were very lucky people.

I grew up with four brothers: Jake, the oldest, who was two years older than me, Kevin, who was one year older than me, Chase, who was supposedly my fraternal twin, and Aaron, who was four years younger than me, the baby. Something must have happened that made my parents want to not have kids for a while, and I've always guessed that it was me.

The funny thing is that I never considered that I had been adopted. The rest of my family had dark brown hair and light blue eyes, just like me. We got along like a normal family, but in a mansion in north Georgia. My relatives didn't act oddly around me, like I didn't belong there. I did belong.

But that was before weird things started to happen. Things that my parents would brush off nonchalantly, no matter the danger.

Blind spells. I'll never forget the first one. I was ten, sitting in the room I shared with Chase. We were playing Farkle and I had rolled the dice. I hadn't gotten any fives, ones, or patterns for points. It was one of the worst rolls you could get in the game. I remember laughing with my brother at the sheer horribleness of the roll, but at my next turn, I had picked up the dice and everything went black.

I blinked. Once. Twice.

"Why'd you turn out the lights, Chasey?" I asked.

"What?"

"The room is all dark! I can't see a thing." I groaned, dropping the die. I stood up and held my arms out in front of me. I shuffled forward until I reached the wall. After fumbling around, I found the light switch. I flicked it down. Up. Down. Up Down.

"Stop it, Rhoda!" Chase shouted, he sounded a bit worried.

I trailed my hand against the wall until I found the door and the door handle, but nothing came into view when I opened it. I stumbled out into the hallway. Black. That was all there was. I suddenly felt nervous. I had come into the open, but there were stairs somewhere near me. Steps came from behind.

"Rho? Are you okay?"

I turned towards the voice. Someone screamed.

When I turned, I fell, and the stairs were right next to me. Thump. Thump. Thump. Ouch. I stopped on the landing. My wrist was throbbing.

My twin pounded down the stairs and helped me up, before he asked, "Wh-where did your eyes go?"

I blinked, but still saw nothing. "What?"

"Your blue parts. Of your eyes. They're gone."

I felt panic rise in my chest. I thought about the alien movie I had watched with my brothers last night, but before I could explain my train of thought, my vision cleared.

I blinked again, but this time my brother's face came into view.

Chase smiled nervously. "They're back."

"I'm okay," I had said. I hadn't wanted to seem weak. I hadn't wanted to be teased for being a little girl. Standing up, I had told him to not tell anyone about it, but as they happened for longer periods of time, my whole family knew, but did nothing about it.

I still get the blind spells, but the triggers are always different. Sometimes I can predict them, sometimes not.

A couple of years passed and I was twelve. I was still homeschooled with the rest of my siblings to avoid the long drive to the nearest school. The program we used was boring and easy, so we always had plenty of time off to swim, wrestle, and play in the surrounding peach orchard.

One time in the orchard, while we were pelting each other with fallen peaches, the sticky humidity being emphasized as the natural sugar juice ran down our faces and necks, a young girl appeared out of nowhere.

She was beautiful, but a bit odd. She had pale green skin, long, dark green hair with little streaks of reddish-pink, and a short orange dress. I screwed up my face at her choice of clothing, but supported her barefoot feet. She smiled at me as my brothers dropped their peaches in awe.

"Hi!" she said, grinning.

I smiled, but before I could respond, Jake said, "You're pretty."

This pleased her, but I was surprised. My oldest brother was very conservative, and the fact that he didn't automatically make fun of her green skin surprised me.

She giggled and held out her hand to me. "I'm Persica," she said. Jake started forwards, but I replied quickly, "I'm Rhoda." She laughed again and her brown eyes became crescents, "I know."

Jake stepped in front of me and held out his hand, "I'm Jake. Welcome to the Hound residence." He put his arm around her and started walking away, accidentally smearing Persica with peach nectar.

Before I rolled my eyes and got back to throwing peaches, I heard a snippet of their conversation.

"I think it's really good of you throwing the peaches already on the ground. That's really smart." Persica said.

Jake laughed. "I think that peaches should be given more opportunity that only being eaten. They are quite beautiful, and the color! Well, their color is just the same as your beautiful skin. Say, are you from the town?..." and they walked away.

I wasn't completely sure what to make of that, besides my brother failing miserably with some weird girl. I groaned as Kevin hit me in the chest with a peach, and I leapt up to go chase him, forgetting all about Persica.


End file.
